There is a trend in the death care industry to make efforts towards “personalizing” the funeral products and the funeral or other memorial service purchased for the deceased to provide a more meaningful memorial experience for the family and friends of the deceased. One of the earlier attempts at providing a means of personalizing or customizing a casket to the deceased may be seen with reference to the Assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 4,457,054 titled Casket Shelf, hereby incorporated by reference herein. That patent discloses a casket shelf which is mounted to the dish assembly of the head end cap when the head end cap is in the open position. The shelf provides a surface for supporting and displaying articles of religious or personal significance to the deceased when the head end cap is open during viewing of the deceased. The shelf is removed from the dish assembly when the head end cap is closed, i.e. the shelf is not integrally formed as a part of the casket.
More recently, caskets have been provided with memorabilia drawers in which keepsakes of the deceased can not only be displayed, but can be stored as well, as disclosed in the Assignee's U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,611,124 and 5,727,291, both titled Casket Having Memorabilia Compartment and hereby incorporated by reference herein. In these patents the items of memorabilia in the drawer can be displayed when the head end cap is open during viewing of the deceased by withdrawing the drawer from the foot end cap, and can be stored by inserting the drawer into the foot end cap. The caskets of these patents are commercially available from the assignee as the MemorySafe® line of caskets.
Caskets have also been provided with memorabilia trays that pivot into and out of the casket shell in which keepsakes of the deceased can be displayed when the tray is pivoted out of the casket shell and stored when the tray is pivoted into the casket shell, as disclosed in the Assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 5,675,876, entitled Casket With Pivoting Memorabilia Tray and hereby incorporated by reference herein.
Advances have therefore been made in the area of “personalization” of funeral products. However, there continues to be room for improvement in the area of personalization in the death care industry.